Getting Into The Cloud

I work for a company that delivers cloud solutions to health businesses so as you can imagine, my answer towards cloud computing tends to be a biased one and nearly 10 out of 10 times you will hear me rave about this technology and how it needs more respect and attention outside the circle of IT professionals.

I thought it might be time to try and explain what cloud computing is, why we need it and how it will help us keep up with today’s changing way of life.

How does cloud computing fit into the way we do business today? One simple word, mobility.

Mobility has been dominating the direction in which technology has shifted for the last 15 years or so. The ability to be able to communicate, access resources and make decisions faster can be the difference between making a profit or not, it can be the difference between closing a project on time or not and more importantly, being mobile in today’s challenging and demanding life, can mean having the ability to spend more time outside the office whilst still being able to perform work-related tasks if needed.

This is where cloud computing fits into today’s ever changing fast paced way of life. We have to realise that the ability to be mobile means we can do a lot more without the sacrifice of being limited to space, time or in a way the location we are in. Being mobile is not about making or receiving phone calls, it is about performing key decisions and completing tasks in a quicker, easier and more efficient manner.

I believe cloud computing is the technology that gives me the ability to easily and securely host and access my complete range of business-related applications and data from the web.

Stop for a few minutes and look at the device you are currently using to read this blog. You will most likely be using windows or Mac OSX. You will also have some type of an office product suite; your emails will be set up and if you are using a work device, you might have business-related software programs installed on your PC and access to your business-related data. You will also have access to a number of shared drives that contain your business policies, contracts and more

We have just described your local IT environment. Now imagine having the ability to access what we discussed above from home, from your office, from your laptop whilst you are on the road, from your iPad when you are in a meeting. Simply put, the device you use and where you are is irrelevant.

The thought of being mobile and having your valuable applications and data on the web might seem like a scary thought. We hear about data security, privacy and more.

I’ll start off with by by stating we are lucky that we are in Australia. Australian data privacy laws are some of the best and among the most strict in the world. Having your data hosted in Australia means that you OWN your data and not the hosting vendor. This also means that by law no one is allowed to snoop around your data without your permission so for the health sector, this provides complete privacy, security and protection under the law.

Some of you may know of the Patriot Act that is currently active in the US. The Patriot Act, to a degree, allows government bodies to access your data and monitor it at will. This sort of law is not recognised nor is it approved in Australia, which makes Australian data centres some of the best and most secure in the world.

Besides government laws that protect your data, data centres also incorporate some of the best technologies such as firewalls and disaster recovery (DR) strategies to ensure that the service you receive is that of the highest grade. Data centres come in first, second or third-tier with the third-tier being the best of the bunch.

Imagine hosting your business applications on a server that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars 12 months ago if you were to purchase it. With cloud computing, you can use virtually unlimited resources and the cost is minimal when compared to purchasing hardware.

Cloud computing is secure, efficient, useful and it is here to stay. I have certainly stopped carrying my laptop around with all my data stored on it. I can check emails, access files and run applications all from my banged-up Samsung smartphone. Tell you what, it’s amazing being able to work and do so much without being stuck at my desk.

If you would like to find out more about cloud computing then please don’t hesitate to contact us on 02 8005 0583 ormail@rendta.com. Bye for now.